cybersalon surveillance

Thanks to Edward Snowden we now know the British state conducts unprecedented interception of data flowing in and out of the UK Internet. It does so without individual warrants. This massive surveillance is widely thought to be lawful and bigger than that of the US. In the US surveillance is conducted with some protections for US citizens. Yet while a debate about surveillance has started in the US, it has so far passed the UK by.

In fact UK citizens are double surveilled. As foreigners for the purpose of US surveillance our use of US cloud based services – like gmail – make us fair game for warrantless US surveillance as well.

In this Cybersalon we bring together Europe’s foremost authority on security, Caspar Bowden, the former head of Microsoft Security – who will set forth the technical and legal basis of surveillance, and why this is such an important moment.

Also on the panel will be Becky Hogge – Author of the book “Barefoot in Cyberspace: Adventures in search of techno-Utopia’. Becky also sits on the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group where she was their first full-time Executive Director and changed UK policy on electronic voting and communications surveillance.

And bringing us an international perspective will be Kenneth Page – the Policy Chief for Privacy International.

In this Cybersalon we’ll discuss issues like

“They do it because they can”: What is the role of big data technologies and advances in UX and hardware in the increase in government ability to surveil and what are the trends – what does the future hold?

What’s the fuss? Is it ok for Google to know more about us than the government? And – by the way – If you have nothing to hide, then what’s to fear?

What are the implications for Net freedom around the world, and for the very character of the Internet? Is the Net a commons or as an American general recently claimed, a global free-fire zone?

If we accept that people are not about to stop using the Internet, what is the best way to counter surveillance? Is the solution to snooping: technological, politics or the market?

Moderator: Wessel van Rensburg, former investigator for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and digital strategist at RAAK .